


Overworked, underfed

by The_silent_smile



Series: The not-so-happy life of Anthony Edward Stark [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Food Issues, Heavy Angst, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, Overworking, Parent Tony Stark, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Tony-centric, suicidal Tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 06:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19167337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_silent_smile/pseuds/The_silent_smile
Summary: Tony doesn't eat because he's busy. And then he doesn't because he keeps himself busy.And then he doesn't because he deserves it.-He doesn't really know when it changed from not having time to eat to not wanting to do so because he felt like he didn't deserve it.He ate as much as was strictly needed to keep him functioning, though after a while realised he could still cut back on it as he had fat stored on his body anyway and that he had enough fuel to go with only two spoons of yoghurts and a glass of water a day for over three months without dying.Guess he didn't calculate it well enough.





	Overworked, underfed

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, a shitstorm of angst so have this trigger/squick warning:  
> Possible Triggers/ squicks: mention of starvation, suicidal thoughts and tendencies, overworking, mention of food

'Tony, please, we understand, you have a different life and a lot to manage; you and a company and everything else. But please can you at least show up for the debriefing after the missions?  
To be accepted into the team as an actual member you should really try and care about this job more.'

...

He'd been in his lab for over three days now.

At least that is what Friday told him as she once again piped up to ask him to please eat and drink something, that his conditions were critical and that his body would start shutting down if he kept this up for much longer.

After she'd told him this for the seventh time he put her on mute, regretting it immediately as he now had nobody to talk to. Nobody that would listen to him rambling on about whatever he was working on or whatever came to mind while working on it.

'Whatever he was working on' currently was his first try on nanotechnology. It was experimental, sure. But Nano could do a great deal. And if he somehow made it so they would listen to his will alone without having to say anything, this could make for some pretty interesting armour.

He had just gotten across what he assumed was the halfway point to completing the calibrations that would ultimately make it so that the Nanobots could listen to his thoughts and obey them, as he collapsed for the first time.

He came by just a few minutes later, screwdriver poking angrily into his arm from where he had dropped it, a small trickle of blood blossoming where it had pocked his skin a little too harshly.

"Fri, don't engage. Just a little lightheaded. I've had that before."

With that he sat up, groaning as he got onto his feet while leaning on the workbench heavily.

Wait. Friday couldn't talk right now. Woops.

"Fri, unmute please."  
"Shall I call miss Potts sir?"  
"Not even a hello? Well, that's just rude. And no dear, you can let Pepper stay at SI don't you worry. As a matter of fact, might as well make myself useful now that we're on the topic, is there any meeting I have to attend?"

"There's three that have invited you to join them, all stating that they were of importance. Shall I call Happy to pull up a car Sir?"

Tony rubbed his head - had he hit it? - and made his way towards the elevator, shaking with the effort to keep himself walking in one straight line as he knew that, if his AI would see that he couldn't even do that, she would ignore his orders and call someone to assist.

"Nah don't you worry. I'll drive myself. You know how I hate being driven when it's not that important. I'll go change and then I'll be out and about for the rest of the day so you keep an eye on Dum-E, U and Butters right? Kids, you heard me, listen to your little sister, she knows best."

A few beeps and clicks of protest were heard, probably from Dum-E trying to reason that he was the oldest so he should be in charge, though Tony just waved them goodbye before entering the elevator, still tense and straining to not slump against the wall as he knew his AI could go in every room in the compound.

Three days wasn't nearly his record for not eating so he'd be fine.  
He could lose some pounds, either way, the dad belly, as Sam had jokingly called it, showing more and more every day he gave himself over to the easy life.

Yeah. A few pounds less wouldn't be the end of the world, he thought, while blinking rapidly to regain clear vision and stepping into the car that Friday had pulled up, starting the engined and slowly making his way to the meetings.

He'd eat something on his way back.

-

"Hey, kids, daddy's home!"  
Three am.  
They had kept him there to talk and listen and be judged until three in the fucking morning.

"Boss, may I point out that you haven't eaten in-"  
"Fri, kill the lights, Pep won't be here today anyway so we're sleeping on the couch. U, be a doll and get me a blanket, will you? And Butters, if you wake me up again by triggering the sprinklers I'm donating you to Bronk's school of science."

"Boss, may I suggest you eat something before you -" "light out and doors locked Fri. Goodnight everyone."

He was met with a chorus of beeps and whirling noises wishing him goodnight and sweet dreams, U rolling up to him with three blankets and Dum-E doing his best to tuck him in, aware that dad had had a hard day and trying to help.

Both of them got a pat on their claw or whatever mechanical part Tony was able to reach easiest, and rolled away to their charging pods. And with a final whirl of Butterfingers wishing him sweet dreams he drifted off, a total of four glorious hours of sleep before he had to get up again, the alarms telling him they had to assemble blaring through the whole room, a startled beep and a loud crash indicating that U had dropped something again, though this time she really couldn't be blamed.

"Time for work I guess," he mumbled before sitting up, back protesting and muscles aching as he got up again. A pain in his abandonment making him flinch, though he staggered over to the newest suit anyway, ignoring the worried claw that was tugging on his clothes begging him to stay.

"Butters, you know I have to go, I'll be back soon okay sweetheart? Don't worry about me, papa will be fine"

With a final, sad whirl the claw let go of his clothes and he let the suit fold around him, powering up the thrusters right away and speeding through the tunnel he had made, the opening above ground right next to the parking lot, where the rest of them were waiting.

"You took unusually long to get here, everything alright?"  
"Yeah. Just one of the bots not wanting me to go out because I was heavily injured. I don't know since when a paper cut counts as a live-threatening flesh wound but what gives. I'm here now so let's get cracking shall we?"

-

"Back again. See? I didn't die Butters. You've got nothing to worry about."  
"May I remind you that you're arm was severely mangled and is most likely broken, sir."  
"Fri shut up I'm trying to make sure he won't try to cook something for me again, last time I got hurt he burned down the kitchen."

"Speaking of kitchens. A reminder that you haven't eaten anything besides a snickers bar Thor lend you and a spoonful of yoghurt for over 83-"  
"Yeah yeah yeah. I'm fine Fri, hey, is there any more meetings I was invited to?"

-

He doesn't really know when it changed from not having time to eat to not wanting to do so because he felt like he didn't deserve it.  
He ate as much as was strictly needed to keep him functioning, though after a while realised he could still cut back on it as he had fat stored on his body anyway and that he had enough fuel to go with only two spoons of yoghurts and a glass of water a day for over three months without dying.

Guess he didn't calculate it well enough.

They were called in for missions a ridiculous amount of time over the next two months, some quickly handled without much effort put into it, some going on for hours and hours, the paperwork he'd handle after that taking even longer as he seemingly was the only person in the team to realise that these missions also had to be typed out and archived.

He had three meetings every day at least. The ones where the missions took too long to complete he caught up on and rescheduled to the next day.

The Nano suit was coming along much faster as he thought it would have, putting every ounce of energy he had left into working on upgrading the housing and the capacity of it.

Sleeping was down to three hours a day at most.

Pepper had told him she'd wait for him in the Malibu mansion, knowing he wouldn't let her help even if she tried to override Fridays code.

He skipped every debriefing, only coming in contact with the team in the suit or when strictly needed, which was hardly ever.

He spoke to Bruce about his project on the phone for the first two weeks before Bruce stopped picking up.

He spoke to Friday after that, though she never responded anymore, seemingly mad at her boss for changing her code and not allowing her to contact anybody about his conditions.

And then suddenly she told him Pepper had sent him a package and that it couldn't be delivered to the lab so he needed to pick it up in the main living room because they needed his autograph to confirm the package was for him.

And then suddenly he was making his way towards the elevator, Friday taking him up to the common floor without as much as a single word, him standing in the middle of the elevator, correcting his stance and overall body language from Tony to Tony Stark, putting on his shades and a smirk right before the elevator doors slid open and he marched out like a man going to his own execution.

The team, conveniently all gathered in either the living room or open kitchen attached to it, all looked up, eyes widening as they saw Tony walk towards the man standing by the visitors elevator who looked highly uncomfortable being present in a room full of superheroes lounging about, sign what needed to be signed, accept the package and walk back towards the elevator.

It would all have been perfect if it weren't for the hand that was suddenly on his arm, or the noises of all five of his teammates walking towards him.

-

When Tony walked in everyone stopped whatever they were doing, Natasha, looking up from the book she had been reading, froze mid-breath, her mouth open, a lost snarky insult on her lips as she took in her friends form.

Everything about him was normal. The cocky smiley and the sunglasses that were always present even though they were inside, the walk, back arched and his steps graceful like those of a man that had done ballet earlier in life and never unlearned the steps.

Everything about him was normal.  
Except for the way his cheeks looked hollow, the way his clothing sagged and folded where it would normally be filled out by his form. The way the steps he took looked more like the black swans' last dance than those of a man just starting his performance.

Steve was the one to get up and jump into action, all of them seemingly kicked out of their thoughts and following the captain, standing and quickly making their way over to Tony who now stood frozen as Steve's hand grabbed his arm.

"Stark, turn around."  
"Take your hand off my arm please."  
"I said turn around. That's an order, Tony."  
"Don't. touch. me" He positively growled, every single muscle in his body tense as Steve's hand remained on his arm. Seeming to only squeeze it tighter, holding him in place. Trapping him.

"Tony, can you please turn around for us?" came Natasha's voice, tone soft and encouraging. And wasn't that mean? He couldn't refuse her anything she asked of him.  
Steve, he could easily say no to. Simply remembering the bunker or the argument about Ultron or the one on the hell carrier and so on was enough for him to become so spiteful that he'd go directly against the captain's orders as much as the situation allowed him to.

But Natasha he trusted, yes she had betrayed him once and hurt his trust another time. But he knew he could always count on her, depend on her if needed, on as well as off the battlefield. She was a friend, and he deserved nothing short of hell if he were to make his friends unhappy or distrust him in any way.

So after her asking and a hot second of thinking about any possible ways he could avoid this situation, he turned around, facing them all, the smirk ever present as if it was etched into his skin.

"What happened to you?" Natasha again. She really did sound worried.  
"Hmm?"  
"You're as thin as a leaf Tony. What happened?" And there was Steve, interrupting the conversation even though he was a part of it. God, he hated this tiptoeing he had been doing since they'd moved back into the compound. But Tony Stark wasn't anything if not spiteful, so he gave the answer to Natasha instead.  
"I wouldn't say its that extreme, itsy bitsy. And don't worry, I'm perfectly healthy."

With that he turned around again, though his plan of striding towards the elevator like he'd just won the battle of the century seemed to be destined to fail as the quick movement made his vision swim and his knees buckle, the last thing he heard was the sigh Steve gave after his answer to Natascha before he hit the floor and everything went black.

-

Waking up again was unexpected, though not unwelcome.

The room he was in was cold, almost freezing to him, as he shuffled more under the blanket, trying to put his arms under it too, before realising there was a needle attached to the tube sticking out of his right one, preventing him from doing so.

Damn. He had thought the team might try to wake him up themselves before he was rushed to the hospital. If they had, he was sure he wouldn't have woken up.

The thought wasn't unappealing to him and he shook himself for allowing that train of thought to enter his brain.

"Tony..."

Shit. That was Peppers' voice, wasn't it? He was doomed.

"Het Pep. How'd you-" He started, opening his eyes and tilting his head towards where the voice was coming from, though stopped mid-sentence as he saw that Pepper wasn't, in fact, sitting on the chair next to his hospital bed as if he were to take his last breath, but displayed on a small screen, pixels making it impossible for him to actually see her expression.

Of course, she wouldn't be able to come over. She had important things to do and him not taking good care of himself was like every other Tuesday, she wouldn't hop on the first plane back just because he had a splinter either so why would she now?

"Tony, what the hell happened?"

Her voice, now that he had realised that it was coming out of the speakers of a slightly outdated phone, sounded robotic, the odd echo the phone gave it making it hard to pick up the small signs he would normally be able to pinpoint and point out what kind of mood she was in.

"Overworked and underfed myself. 't happens, no need to worry. I'm all good and giddy."

"With all due respect Stark, that's absolute bullshit."

How he hadn't noticed that the person holding the phone for him was none other than America's patriotic pet Steve- Captain America- Rogers, was beyond him, though now that he did, he couldn't stop staring at him, Pepper on the phone forgotten as he stared, wishing he would be able to scoot back and away from the all-around furious expression that twisted the good captains facial features.

"You're thin as a leaf Tony."  
"Yeah, you said that before."  
"And I'll say it again! You'll die if you keep this self-destructive behaviour going Stark! The team needs you to be there when the world calls upon the Avengers for help."

Of course. This was all about the Avengers, the team needing him to cover their six. Who gives a shit about why he'd started this in the first place right? Why he continued even though his AI was downright begging him to stop?"

"And I need you to shut the hell up. I've got a massive headache and my wife on the phone.  
I don't need one of your hero speeches to make it worse right now Rogers."

"This isn't one of my hero speeches Stark-" He spit his name like it was something vile, something dirty, and Tony shrunk back into the mattress, eyeing the phone to see that Pepper looked at him in worry, "- You're putting not only yourself but the whole world in danger by not being in top condition or any good kind of condition for that matter. Maybe if you were a little more like Howard you'd-" "Captain, I advice you leave the room now."

And there stood Rhodey, War Machine armour still on and the arc reactor inside it lighting up more than it usually would. Meaning Rhodey had the blaster charged. Meaning he was more than ready to blast Steve's ass off if he wouldn't leave.

"Colonel."  
"I won't ask again cap."

Steve seemed to weight his options for a couple of seconds before realising that it might be best if he wanted to keep all of his limbs, and put the phone down wordlessly, Tony picking it up and giving Pepper a smile before he motioned for her to end the call, knowing she had a meeting to go to and trying to wordlessly assure her that he was alright, as cap marched out of the room, most definitely off to the gym to release some steam, and closed the door behind himself, leaving the mechanic and Rhodey alone in the room.

It took Tony all of ten seconds to snap out of the staring contest he was having with the wall and start methodically pulling out the IV and pulling the stickers from his chest, quickly silencing the machine measuring his heart rate as it added to the mixture of things creating a skull-splitting headache with its loud constant beep.

"Tones- don't- what are you-"  
"You've known me long enough to not try to stop me when doing these things, Rhodey. Besides you know I hate hospitals and when they put me here they kind of had to expect this would happen."

"I'm not signing you out Tones."  
"But honey bear, I'm fine! I can recover from whatever they want me to recover from at home just as well as I can here. Maybe even quicker."  
"Tony, they're feeding you through a tube, you nearly died through starvation and you'll go right back to it as soon as you're out of here... I-... We don't want to lose your Tones, not after we've nearly done so so many times."

Tony looked down at that, at his hands laying on the blanket, fingers unnaturally boney, the once in his wrists sticking out and nearly seeming to cut through the skin, so thin he'd be able to wrap his thumb and pinky around them without much effort.

Shit, he'd really gone too far hadn't he?

So why didn't he feel guilty?

"Tones you need to tell us when it's getting bad again. I- I didn't know it could be this bad but- tell us okay? We want you here with us Tony. Not wasting away 5 feet under. I need to be sure that you don't try something like this again.

Something like...  
Rhodey thought he was suicidal, didn't he?

He looked at his friend. The friend that stayed in the War Machine armour because, if he let it unfold around him, he'd fall to the floor, still not yet able to walk without someone helping him or the support of the armour, how well Tony had made the braches put aside.  
His friend, who frowned as if he had personally been wounded by Tony's misstep, who he had been able to lean on and depend on since forever, who had been with him since square one. His friend who was more like a brother to him.  
His friend that thought Tony had tried to off himself because he was horny for death, suicidal.

He wasn't though. He wasn't. This all had just been a mistake. A miscalculation. 

He wasn't... right?


End file.
